Another View: Border kids crisis needs speedy resolution

When is someone going to take responsibility for America's broken immigration system? You can look back at the variety of immigration reform measures that have been instituted stretching back to the Reagan administration and earlier, and you will not find consensus on how immigration should work. But honestly, there isn't time for that.

There is a genuine humanitarian crisis right now along the U.S.-Mexico border. Some 50,000 unaccompanied minors have been stopped at the border arriving from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Most of them are fleeing gang and drug violence and grinding poverty back home. Many of them are being literally warehoused by federal immigration officials and local and state agencies in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Some of the children have died along the way, in the desert or in other circumstances.

The crisis is only growing more volatile, as political candidates and anti-immigration protesters step into the fray. But it is inaction in Congress that has allowed the situation to reach this point.

More than a year ago, the U.S. Senate passed a sweeping reform bill, including the yes votes of Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker. An amendment co-written by Corker to strengthen border security helped build support for the bill, which also addresses a path to citizenship for millions of people who entered the country illegally over the years, allows for more guest-worker visas and makes other provisions.

The legislation has the solid support of organizations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Jewish Federations of North America, the United Methodist Church, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Association of Evangelical Churches.

But the bill must have House approval, too, and representatives never gave the legislation the time of day. As we saw in this year's primary defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, even halfhearted support for the bill could spell doom politically for Republicans.

Meanwhile, the Senate's Democratic leaders aren't allowing votes on much of anything because they fear their voting record will be used against them at the polls in November. The Republican-controlled House passes one bill after another, but none of them would ever get the Senate's or President Obama's approval.

There are a lot of problems being exacerbated by congressional and White House impotence, but the immigration crisis has just ratcheted up. The matter of the "border kids" must not be ignored.

Congress still has a role to play in this: Lawmakers could help by offering stopgap solutions instead of grandstanding for voters - and pass the immigration bill.

- The Tennessean, Nashville

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Another View: Border kids crisis needs speedy resolution

When is someone going to take responsibility for America's broken immigration system? You can look back at the variety of immigration reform measures that have been instituted stretching back to the